Paul Harvey is dead and so is Norman Rockwell. And the America that they loved, cherished and praised through their eloquent commentary and living artwork will soon join them in the grave.

The America of freedom and opportunity where any man or woman could elevate themselves to whatever level of achievement that their individual talents, sense of responsibility and personal initiative permitted them is being surreptitiously and systematically replaced by an America dipped in the poisonous doctrine of equality of outcome, politically supported by the dangerous delusion that governments can grant entitlements and privileges to rectify the supposed errors of the Creator.

That the politics of “equality” and “rights” has fostered a culture of individuals who have been trained to expect a comfortable lifestyle provided for them by the government is without question. Now, business enterprises that do not have a chance in hell of competing in the free marketplace of ideas and those seeking to escape from reasonable calculations and risk taking, as required by all honest businessmen, are now lined up at the ever-expanding political trough, right along with other career parasites, like big labor, salivating for government handouts and protection.

This political swill, this deluge of government-prescribed rights and subsidies has created an entitlement mentality of epidemic proportions. In the past politicians were able to pay for this so-called distributive justice from the earnings of the working man. With this governmental bloodletting posing as a cure for inequities in society now out of control, that is no longer possible as “needs” have outrun the means to provide for them by taxation alone and resolute borrowing has ensued.

The pursuit of equality will get you the French Revolution, Russian Communism and societal collapse; the pursuit of liberty might lift America from the brink of dissolution.